Posted on 09/02/2019 1:01:56 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Jim Mattis, the former Marine Corps general and Pentagon chief, has lashed 2020 Democratic front-runner Joe Biden for fueling the rise of ISIS by insisting on the total withdrawal of U.S. troops in Iraq.
"You may want a war over. You may declare it over. You may even try to walk away from it. But the bottom line is the enemy gets a vote, as we say in the military, and we simply have got to understand that terrorism is going to be an ambient threat," he said in an NPR interview.
As vice president, Biden was tasked by President Barack Obama with overseeing Iraq policy. In his new book, Mattis, 68, argues that Biden, 76, was "indifferent" to the consequences of complete withdrawal - consequences that included "tens of thousands of casualties, plus untold misery for millions of innocents," as well as the kidnapping and beheading of westerners, and horrific terrorist attacks across the world.
"He wanted our forces out of Iraq," Mattis writes in Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead. ”Whatever path led there fastest, he favored. He exuded the confidence of a man whose mind was made up, perhaps even indifferent to considering the consequences were he judging the situation incorrectly."
Biden had voted in 2002 to authorize the Iraq invasion, after opposing the Gulf war in 1990. Obama, who has denounced the Iraq invasion, had campaigned in 2008 on pulling out.
The U.S. pulled out its forces from Iraq in 2011, despite warnings from Mattis that this would be folly. At the time, Mattis was head of Central Command, overseeing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama sent forces back to Iraq in 2014 after the Islamic State seized parts of the country.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
—Donald Trump, Helsinki, July 2018
That is 100% bullsh!t. I have never "smeared" you at all. I simply responded to your own self-promotion of your military background as a way to pretend you have more credibility than anyone else to opine about these matters.
My point was that if John McCain and John ("I voted for the war before I voted against it") Kerry also had combat experience, then clearly a military background is NOT relevant to one's opinions about the wisdom of any given military campaign.
I haven't sat here and debated military tactics with you ... for the simple reason that you obviously know far more about me about that subject. I HAVE, however, posted at length here about the WISDOM of having the U.S. military used as a mercenary force for Wall Street and for foreign governments in Third World dumps all over the globe. That's why some of us were thrilled to see Donald Trump destroy both the Bush and Clinton globalist cabals in one election cycle.
I'm going to suggest that perhaps your lengthy military background makes you LESS credible than others when discussing these issues. Perhaps the old adage comes into play for you in this case: "When your tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail to you."
American dead are a dime a thousand, so it seems.
You know that better than most.
What a slimy, reptilian thing to say! Those of us who died defending us, saved you nonserving ingrates - and the rest of the world - from Nazism, Japanese militarism, Communism and lately from Islamic barbarity.
What's wrong with you? Didn't you have the guts to serve our country?
How are you a "conservative"?
I was shocked that Mattis stayed above the fray when interviewed on CBS, or one of the legacy media channels this weekend. The host kept wanting him to trash Trump and he repeatedly refused.
Well, yeah - Captain Obvious - A long career in the profession in that line of work and investing blood, bone, and muscle in knowing what war takes would have that effect. That, and serving all over the world and keeping very current in the geopolitical realities.
"U.S. military used as a mercenary force for Wall Street and for foreign governments in Third World dumps all over the globe"
Which is precisely the Marxist-Leninist version of these things and I am very surprised to hear putative conservatives spouting the same tripe.
Don't you recognize that the world around us is filled with charming, likeable people who would eviscerate all of us at the slightest chance? Won't you be honest with yourself and maybe whisper back to me that the young people who put on the uniform and fought for us actually kept all of you nice and safe from further mass attacks by the scum of the Earth?
Is all of this because you didn't choose to offer yourself in the service of your country when you were young and in your prime?
If you were shocked then you don’t know Jim Mattis.
No I don't know Mattis, but was pleasantly surprised.
Your comment is a bit near sighted. WWII was the last ‘total war’. Yes, over in 6 years. But you cant blame the military handling of wars since for not being so devastatingly effective. The change is political. Politicians are reluctant to go back to ‘total war’ when we have tools like surgical strike and precision munitions to minimize civilian casualties. So its about the constraints we put on our warriors, not our warriors failing us.
Mattis is right to criticize Biden and the Obama admin for haphazardly pulling out of Iraq after our hard fought victories. Pissed away the sacrifices made.
Mattis’ recent comments regarding Trump are not a betrayal. They are a warning to Trump not to make the same mistakes as Obama. Trump is right to want an exit strategy, but every course of action has consequence, even withdrawal. Finding the ‘best’ way to end this is difficult and frustrated by an enemy that is still trying to fight. You should never ignore someone who is trying to kill you.
“Now go back and pull the covers over your head and let the men (and military ladies) protect you.”
How about you blow me.
We are a Constitutional Republic, or what’s left of one anyway, so believe it or not the American people have some say as to which wars we get into and when we get the hell out of them. We’ve wasted trillions of dollars and thousands of lives in these 7th century hell holes for the last 20 years.
And we haven’t accomplished a damned thing. Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria are no better and are all arguably worse since we started screwing around over there.
I’ve worn the uniform, by the way. When Iraq or Afghanistan pose an existential threat to us get back to me. If they do I say we nuke them off the planet. But no more nation building.
It doesn’t work in the ME.
It’s never going to work in the ME.
Period. End of story.
L
Nice homo response - must have joined recently.
I do - worked for a bit. A true gentleman of integrity. Wish the President had kept him.
Amen.
Then kill them. Don't go over to their countries and engage in stupid nation-building exercises that involve pissing away thousands of American lives and trillions of taxpayer dollars. I knew the Iraq war was a f#%&ing fraud when the transitional government overseen by the U.S. allowed the new Iraqi government to establish a constitution under which -- get this -- Islam is enshrined as the official state religion. Anyone who was surprised to see the place turn into a breeding ground for groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda is a moron.
The biggest state sponsors of radical Islam are in places like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Hell -- Pakistan's government even harbored Osama bin Laden after he fled from Afghanistan. Did you ever sit down and ask yourself why this is the case? And why do these countries remain unscathed while the U.S. invades and occupies Islamic countries run by secular dictators?
Which is precisely the Marxist-Leninist version of these things and I am very surprised to hear putative conservatives spouting the same tripe.
I voted for Donald Trump in 2016 because Hillary Clinton was the Wall Street/globalist shill in that election. Remarkably to some people (but not to me), she was running on a globalist platform that was nearly identical to the sh!t we saw for eight years during the George W. Bush administration.
Is all of this because you didn't choose to offer yourself in the service of your country when you were young and in your prime?
I actually turned down an opportunity to pursue a nomination to one of the military academies. One of the biggest reasons for this was that I had no faith in my own government to make responsible decisions in the conduct of its military affairs.
I'd make the same decision today. Enlisting young soldiers into our military and sending them anywhere other than our southern border to repel a Latin American invasion is a farce. I'm shocked you can't see this yourself.
1. Did he criticize George W. Bush, too?
2. There was nothing "haphazard" about the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. They were withdrawn in late 2011 under the terms of the U.S.-Iraq Status of Forces agreement signed by George W. Bush in November 2008. How "haphazard" could it have been when it was a process that was designed to take place over three years?
You are being a little selective in your history Child. The Obama admin refused to renegotiate the status of forces agreement. That was intentional on Obamas part. Whether the subsequent mayhem that followed visa vi rise of ISIS and insurgencies was also intentional or just lack of any common sense by Obama/Biden is irrelevant. With a status of forces agreement in place, the instability that has followed might have been avoided.
It took decades for us to recover Europe after WWII and it served us to do so for just as many decades. While the ME is not the same, we did have an opportunity to lead that region to a better place. That opportunity was squandered, and the blame goes across both parties.
As far as our southern border goes, I’m with you. I’d deploy the divisions needed until the wall is finished.
Again, though, you don’t see what’s going on: in places where the regime is a threat - as the Taliban were in Afghanistan - we and those allies who joined us crushed them and handed the country to an interim government. Our role has been to help keep the raving lunatics at bay until a non- nuts government can survive.
We aren’t « nation building » or acquiring a 51st state, we’re using minimal force to keep that part of the world from returning to be a terrorist base.
We can’t and shouldn’t conduct mass murder in the name of protecting ourselves. We are a moral, courageous nation - not the Nazis.
Why would the U.S. "renegotiate" such an agreement? It was subject to renegotiation, then why the hell was it signed in the first place?
It took decades for us to recover Europe after WWII and it served us to do so for just as many decades.
If the U.S. allowed Germany to elect a Nazi government in 1946, Harry Truman and everyone in his administration would have been chained to flaming barges in the Potomac River.
No one has a clue how to “win.” The only offered solution, such as it is, is to stay forever. Whenever you pin someone down as to what they think we should do, it comes down to “stay forever.” Not them, of course. They won’t be serving over there. They want other people to stay there forever. Apparently it’s the right thing to do or something.
As to your second point, I don't disagree. That was a mistake resulting from the PC side of GW Bush and his religion of peace philosophy.
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